By Shaenon K. Garrity

Menu

Okay, this one hell of needs some credits. This is “Insanity Claus: A Christmas Storybook,” written and pencilled by me, inked and colored by Andrew. The initial idea was Andrew’s, too. I still find this one entertaining, to be honest. It was a lot of fun to do, even if we threw it together pretty quickly after we came up with it at the last minute. That’s how most of the Sunday features were done.

Yes, that’s Madblood’s mom Dave is helping across the street.

This is all Andrew’s art. You can tell because it’s a tough guy who actually looks tough, as opposed to cute in a burly way. The T-shirt and belt buckle were all Andrew.

Those screaming stick figures in the background crack me up.

This is the way I always used to draw Young Mell. It’s significantly different from the appearance of Li’l Mell, who was designed by Vera Brosgol.

Is that a Voltron T-shirt on Dave? I think it is! He’s wearing the same thing at age six in the time-travel story a couple of years down the road.

“Evildoers” ought to be one word.

Helen’s face turned out all wrong, but I like all the mall signs and stick figures in the background. In the crowd you can see two characters from the Don Hertzfeldt cartoon “Rejected” and what I believe is our friend Jesse Hamm (with the goatee). Andrew and I are in the foreground. I like that Andrew drew his ear overlapping the background for no particular reason. Also, his Spider-Man wrapping paper.

On rhyming “grotto” with “thought, ‘oh'”: I am awesome.

The eternally nameless lost-and-found attendant has found work as a grotto elf. She looks as pleased about it as you’d expect.

Oh, poor Madblood. Also among the victims: Andrew, our friends Jason and Hallie, and me. I don’t know the little girl getting eaten by an ur-gerbil.

Dave’s expression came out just right.

Man, this thing has the best rhymes.

Doing these notes, I can’t get over how long this thing is. It’s epic. As longtime readers know, this is way more effort than I usually put into Sundays.

I love that leather jacket.

For a while, Andrew and I made ourselves T-shirts for the Alternative Press Expo every year. This was the back of the 2002 shirt.

Missing a comma in the next-to-last line there.

I really like the way this drawing came out, too. Andrew’s inking is great. Again, Andrew came up with all of Insanity’s clothing mottos. He’s also the one responsible for making him look like a pro wrestler.

Part of the art of storytelling is knowing where to stop. You see, Shaenon gave us this delightfully happy ending simply by not showing us the following panel, which would consist of Helen and Mell beating Dave up and taking his presents.